Healing

Boy, has it been an intense and interesting, and fairly difficult, couple of weeks! If anything, I have become more and more aware of my own insecurities, weaknesses, and most significantly, my own wounds and brokenness.
I know that this is part of the healing process, but man it can be a sucker punch! Especially to just come to accept that I am powerless to change it on my own or to heal myself, and to realize it is only in God's timing, power, and grace that any real victory will be made. Ah, this means patience and perseverance... and trusting in God rather than my own limited abilities!

Thank God that Jesus came for the sick, the broken, and the desperate. That is the place I am in, but I also know that the one, true firm foundation in my life is Jesus and His work on the cross, and that I can trust in that.

The Cry of My Heart

I am excited and so humbled by what God has been doing in my heart. He has been increasing my hunger for Him, and has been drawing me deeper and deeper into His presence. Deciding to spend time with him, every day... even if I am busy and school work is calling, has really been changing my life. Truly committing to it - to just... pray, read, and soak in His presence has been exactly what my heart needs. I have also been praying, and reflecting on the call to be a missionary - and what that means, for me on a daily basis, even now. Because I know that if God is calling me to be a missionary, it begins now. We are all called to be missionaries  - we are all called to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those around us - we are all called to love. And that is really, the heart of a missionary. To love and serve, completely dependent on Christ and boldly living in Him and through him. But, to love, you have to act... and you have to learn to truly love as Christ does - and its a journey of growth and trial. I can not fly to Africa or Asia, or even to the broken places of America, and expect to magically be able to love as Christ does, to love powerfully and sacrificially. I have to allow God to build it in me - to build a firm foundation and to teach me how to love while acting it out, on a daily basis - like a muscle, and I also need to know that I am His precious and loved daughter, not an orphan.

So, this is the journey that I am on - to spend time daily in my Father's presence, and to spend time daily loving - whatever they may look like. I am sure I will fail many times... but I know that my Father's grace is sufficient.

God has really been speaking this to me through many different ways... even as I was watching the movie Taken - God whispered, "My love for you and all my children is more ferocious than this, and more gentle!" If you have seen the movie, you know what I am talking about!

But I have also been reading a book, by Heidi Baker (co-founder of the missions organization Iris Ministries) called Compelled By Love - and it has literally echoed the cry of my heart and has really helped me understand what it means to be a missionary.. and simply what it means to be a lover of Jesus and in relationship with Him! Literally I have cried and laughed and been driven to my bible and into prayer because of what God has been doing in my heart through the words of this book! So, below I will share some of passages in the book that just grabbed me and made me feel like - this is it! This is the heart of the Gospel! I hope they stir your heart like they did mine!

"The Lord is calling for servant lovers who will call in the outcasts, who will go into the dark corners of the world and compel them to come home. And they will come. Who will go and leave their life of comfort and call in the broken? Who will go and be a learner? Who will go among those who are mourning and lay their life down for Jesus? The Lord wants His house to be full. It is time for us to go to the poor, to the broken, to the homeless, to the dying, and to the lonely and call them in. Thousands and thousands of "sent-out ones" need to go out to the darkest places, to the poorest places, to the forgotten places, because the wedding feast is about to begin. So many still must be called."

"Our lives must be living incarnations of the love of Christ Jesus if we will ever have an effective ministry. What is our motivation for ministry? The Lord is looking for servant lovers - people who are passionate and filled with love for Him, people who desire and are longing for the Bridegroom's return, people who can already taste the feast and know it's about to begin. These people can no longer stand to stay in their comfort zones. They will literally run out and call in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame."

"So there is only one direction in ministry: lower still."

"How do you become good news to both the poor and the rich? How do you become love manifested in physical form and see this gospel fulfilled? If you are called as a missionary - a "sent-out one" - then you are called to comfort those who mourn. You are called to love the broken until they understand God's love - a love that never dies - through you."

"What does it look like to be Jesus to this person, to a people group, or to this nation?"

"Some of you may think ministry is a grand adventure. Ministry, however, is simply loving the person in front of you. It's about stopping for the one and being the  very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world...Ministry is simply you loving like Jesus. It is the beatitudes manifest through your life, Missions are when you have the love of God so that He can demonstrate His very life and nature through you...If you can find someone who is sick, help bring them healing. If you find someone who is hungry, feed them. If you find someone who is thirsty, give them water to drink. If you find someone naked, clothe them. If you can find someone who is broken, weak, or weary, love them to wholeness. And if you find someone who is mourning, give them comfort."

"We must acknowledge that all suffering is valid pain. The suffering in rich nations is loneliness. The suffering in rich nations is internal psychological pain. It is extremely relevant; it is deep. People feel it, and it is just as real as a bloated belly, people starving or disease and death...If we are to be Jesus' hands and feet, we need to care about the needs of others - internally and externally...To heal an orphan spirit in America takes love, compassion, a lot of time, and undivided attention toward one another. Both are valid, both are real, and both are costly."

"God's plan for strategic church growth was for us to simply stop what we were doing, go sit with the poor, and learn how to love."

"True apostolic ministry only flows from being immersed in the presence of God. This creates continuous supernatural fruitfulness."

"None of should want to build our own ministries - that is the opposite of what God called us to. We are called in love and meekness to establish God's kingdom on Earth."


"We will not concentrate on weaknesses in ourselves or the dark forces of danger on all sides, but rather on His face. We are sustained by beholding the beauty of His gaze, and we are confident in His cross - His gospel is sufficient." 


"We were chosen and handpicked and have full access to the heavenly realm because of the finished work of the cross. This is a key for accessing the heavenly realms by faith."




More to come!!